AFS DATUM is an industry portal that for the first time addresses the CPG supply chain in its totality, rather than simply addressing individual segments of the industry. As the provider of software solutions to every segment of the CPG supply chain, AFS is in the unique position to provide the integrated industry solution – Read more »
Tracking Down Millions in Lost Tray Costs It’s an issue the baking industry has struggled with for years – what happens to all those trays? Alpha Baking was well aware of the millions of dollars lost from thousands of missing trays. Alpha Baking’s IT team had an idea that involved using their handheld system to Read more »
Flexible Enough for Two Plants and 90 Routes through Six States Schneider’s Dairy chose AFS Technologies to help navigate multiple locations and multiple regulations. “The state of Pennsylvania is divided up into six different milk areas and each of those areas has different pricing and different rules that they have to follow. It’s very unique Read more »
Your CEO will love you for it. When people talk about Trade Promotion Management (TPM), the conversation often turns to sales planning and forecasting. But there is another side to TPM – the settlement process that revolves around deductions, also called charge backs. For many Manufacturers, this is either an ongoing headache with no resolution Read more »
Standardizing Data For More Than 40,000 Customers Borden is one of the largest dairy groups in the United States, operating 18 plants, with approximately 2,000 vehicles delivering to nearly 40,000 customers throughout the U.S. After a merger and several spin-offs and acquisitions, Borden faced a challenging combination of new and legacy business processes and direct Read more »
With an average of 15 percent of total sales revenue spent on trade with Distributors or Operators, Foodservice Manufacturers have moved their focus from managing trade spend to managing open deductions. The backstory leading to this shift starts with Manufacturers creating contracts with a fixed price reduction to incent Operators to purchase its product versus Read more »
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Manufacturers rely heavily on the use of trade funds in order to more proactively shape demand. Trade promotions are used to influence retailers and collaborate on marketing programs to help drive consumer behavior. While the average shopper may not be aware of it, virtually every product placement, price reduction, BOGO and Read more »
Shamrock Foods Achieves 100% Field Force Uptake with AFS Quofore Retail Execution Mobile Application About Shamrock Foods Shamrock Foods is Ireland’s leading sales, marketing, warehousing and distribution company within the FMCG sector. A member of Origin Enterprises plc, Shamrock Foods is home to three of Ireland’s leading food brands – Shamrock, Roma and Odlums. In Read more »
Simplot closes the gap to excel in-store Simplot Australia is a wholly owned subsidiary of the J R Simplot Company, a privately held food and agribusiness corporation based in Boise, Idaho in the United States. The J.R Simplot company was founded by J.R (Jack) Simplot in the 1930’s and is now a multinational food and Read more »
Achieving Greater Brand Awareness, Greater Visibility and Greater Demand About Whyte & Mackay Whyte and Mackay is a global spirits company with a prestigious portfolio of brands, including Whyte & Mackay Scotch Whisky, The Dalmore Single Highland Malt, Isle of Jura Malt Whisky, Glayva Liqueur and Vladivar Vodka. In 2007, the company began a campaign to boost its Read more »
Patties Foods retail field team has the ingredients of success From humble beginnings at a country bakery in eastern Victoria, Patties Foods has expanded to become the largest savoury pie and sausage roll, and fruit pie manufacturer in Australia. As a true success story spanning 44 years, the family-business boasts a repertoire of trusted brands Read more »
Reduced Costs and Improved Productivity Benefit Summary: $60,000+ per annum savings from reduction in paper. Increase in overnight deliveries. Improved inventory management. Improved sales force management About Brown-Forman Australia Brown-Forman Australia is one of Australia’s largest distributors of alcoholic beverages marketing brands such as Jack Daniels, Southern Comfort, Finlandia Vodka and Chambord. With an office Read more »
Spin Master increases field force effectiveness in retail stores Benefit Summary: Increased management visibility to what’s selling/what’s not and the ability to make immediate promotional plan adjustments. Improved store-level merchandising effectiveness. Empowered merchandising team for greater confidence and employee moral. Immediate sharing of ideas with other merchandising reps for increased display effectiveness. About Spin Master Read more »
Mobile technology is not the future; it’s already being utilized by your peers and competitors to optimize and streamline field operations. Today, field representatives are accessing AFS Quofore®’s multi-tier mobile retail execution software solution on their mobile devices to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of day-to-day activities. Back at the corporate office, managers are utilizing Read more »
Trade Promotion Management Challenge Building a collaborative and mutually profitable relationship with retailers is a common challenge among Consumer Packaged Goods manufacturers. Farmer John®, maker of packaged deli meats and the world-famous Dodger Dogs® hot dog, has taken advantage of the powerful insights that come with Trade Promotion Management (TPM) technology to strategize smarter, react Read more »
Trade Promotion Management Challenge As the U.S. division of Energizer Personal Care, which marketsSchick®, Wet Ones® and Hawaiian Tropic®brands, integrated Playtex®into its portfolio, the company adopted AFS TradePro™’s Trade Promotion Management (TPM) system to standardize processes across the business and garner better visibility into trade spend activities. The task of harmonizing brands and defining business processes while simultaneously implementing a Read more »
Trade Promotion Management Challenge As a company makes the journey to Trade Promotion Management (TPM) effectiveness, indirect sales between a distributor and a retailer, as opposed to the manufacturer and the retailer, is oftentimes ignored. The manufacturer of Peace Cereal®, Sweet Home Farm Granola®, Willamette Valley™ Granola Company and Golden Temple Bulk Granolas wanted to Read more »
Trade Promotion Management Challenge Manually sorting, reviewing and coding stacks of deductions is the industry norm for many Consumer Goods companies, including Weetabix North America. The natural breakfast cereal manufacturer manages deductions for nearly 300 SKUs spread across the US and Canada, including top-selling brands Weetabix, Barbara’s Bakery and Alpen. With limited visibility into its Read more »
Trade Promotion Management Challenge Every month like clockwork, Jeannie Shin, Controller at Bragg Live Food Products, tackled the tedious and time-consuming task of running separate reports in Excel® and the company’s Sage MAS 90 ERP system to obtain the critical business data her Board of Directors needed to review and evaluate the company’s trade spend efficiencies. Read more »
Trade Promotion Management Challenge As a recognized leader in the natural and organic foods category, Pacific Natural Foods knew it needed to get a better handle on promotional spending. Lonn Whitmill, division manager-grocery at Pacific Natural Foods, was specifically interested in how that spending related to volumes and promotion-ability for its soup, broth and non-dairy Read more »
The Trade Promotion Management Challenge Pinnacle decided to wipe the slate clean and search a more robust and flexible solution to accommodate their trade promotion needs in an ever-changing marketplace. They realized the need for an integrated solution that could be rapidly deployed and would support: live-accrual funding, introduce more controls regarding overspending and forecasting, Read more »
The Trade Promotion Management Challenge With seven brands and over 200 SKUs, American Licorice, the famed Red Vine candy manufacturer, used to handle trade promotions the old-fashioned way: in-house, using JD Edwards—and a lot of paper. Just keeping tabs on what promotions were running where with so many products and brokers resulted in little more Read more »
The Trade Promotion Management Challenge As a family-run business with skyrocketing trade spend and very little Marketing support, Marcal Paper was acquired by Highland Capital in May 2008. The new management group needed to adopt a trade promotion management (TPM) solution as a way to increase profits and operate more efficiently. The company is an Read more »
The Trade Promotion Management Challenge As consumers look to stretch their food dollars, it’s easy to see how ready-to-eat frozen foods with quality ingredients combined with value are now in high demand. As a result, California-based Ruiz Foods, the nation’s largest frozen Mexican food manufacturer, doubled its sales force to keep up with demand. With Read more »
Strengthens Customer Profitability by Leveraging TPM After spinning off from CG giant Proctor & Gamble, Sunny D suddenly found themselves a small fish in a big pond. As a new small-to-medium-sized business (SMB), it was imperative that Sunny D not only implement new technologies, but rather use them in a way that could exploit their Read more »
The Trade Promotion Management Challenge As director of trade marketing at Annie’s, Dan Mader knew from the onset that his organization needed to better forecast trade spending and, more importantly, improve reporting to understand both customer and item efficiency. At the root of the issue, was a need to attain near real-time access to Read more »
The Trade Promotion Management Challenge As CPG manufacturers face increased regulation, establishing a solid foundation of accurate trade-related data is crucial for them to maintain regulatory compliance, lower operational risk and ensure profitable performance across the enterprise. For the Solo Cup Company, the $1.5 billion manufacturer of single use products, maintaining a reliable data infrastructure Read more »
The Trade Promotion Management Challenge Popcorn, Indiana, LLC participates in one of the most diverse and highly competitive trade-driven categories in the Consumer Goods industry — salty snacks. With its Popcorn, Indiana® product line and new Chip’ins® product line of popcorn chips, Popcorn, Indiana sells a large percentage of its volume through trade promotions — Read more »
Mobile solutions allow Consumer Goods (CG) brands to connect globally and operate locally. CG companies of every size and category who have embraced this thought leadership stance are using mobile technology to open new doors to succeed at the shelf as well as enhance relationships with retailers and increase shareholder value. Interested in reading the Read more »
To survive and prosper, Consumer Products (CP) brands must be ready to win when it matters – in that first moment of truth when a shopper enters a store or stands at the shelf ready to make a purchase. Success in this brief moment, repeated hundreds and thousands of times every day, rests on having Read more »
Trade spending represents the second greatest expense on the balance sheet of most Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies. Most spend anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of total sales on trade dollars to drive demand on the shelves, point of sale and distribution. Despite the increasing importance of trade promotion management, a majority of CPG Read more »
Despite burgeoning trade spend budgets and the increasing complexity of trade promotion activity, nearly half of today’s CPG manufacturers are still using manual spreadsheets to manage and track trade spend. And while Excel® and other homegrown databases are indeed the right tool to start with, a research study conducted by Consumer Goods Technology Magazine and Read more »
Is Business Intelligence a bunch of smoke and mirrors or can it deliver pure power? The reporting benefits that come from utilizing a Business Intelligence tool seem undeniable, so can your organization truly thrive without relying on one? During this webinar, important questions related to the use of Business Intelligence in the food industry will Read more »
You’ve heard the buzz, so here’s your chance to see the powerful AFS Technologies Solutions Suite in action! Join us for a demo of the industry-leading Food & Beverage business solutions that are generating big results and a quick ROI for Consumer Packaged Goods Manufacturers, Distributors and Sales Agencies. Take a tour of a new Read more »